Aldair Livina sat at the table in the great cabin of his privately owned ship, the Half Moon, looking over his most recent chart of the Eversea. After an eleven-night voyage north-northwest from the Port of Everton, he had discovered a new island. He had named the isle Bakurah in honor of the first ripe fruit of the season. Aldair hoped that this island would be the first of many.
Father Tomek believed that the Five Woes had come upon them at last. Aldair wasn’t convinced that the world was ending, but he appreciated the challenge set before him. And the pay.
The Half Moon was a lateen-rigged ship built for exploring. Smaller, lighter, and faster than the merchant tubs that frequented the Eversea, or the king’s galley ships, it took only fifteen men to sail her and no oarsmen. It had taken three days to circle the new island, which Aldair believed to be slightly smaller than Odarka. Strangely, the water on its northern side was a great deal warmer and bluer than the aqua waters of the Eversea. Aldair succumbed to boldness and scratched the word Northsea on the chart above the newly discovered isle.
After rounding the isle, the Half Moon had started the long journey home for supplies. Any moment now they would reach the Everton Harbor. Since dusk grew nearer, Aldair had given the order to sail between the cliffs and the reefs. It wasn’t the safest route, but his men had taken the journey countless times. And if they didn’t reach the harbor before dark, they’d have to anchor out for one more night. Everyone was eager to get home. Tonight Aldair would sleep in his own bed in his own house. He would give his crew five days’ leave before returning with haste to Bakurah with a second ship to explore the isle while Aldair sailed the Half Moon farther into the unknown.
The ship suddenly quivered as if the anchor chain were running out of the hawser pipe. Aldair straightened and stilled, feeling the movement. Bottles of wine rattled on the sideboard. His inkwell shook its way across the table. That hadn’t felt like a reef. And there were no shallows here that they could be up against, yet the trembling continued as if the vessel were dragging over soft ground.
It had to be another earthquake. Ground shakers were common in the Five Realms, ever more so in the past year. Dozens of ships had been lost, capsized by massive waves. Surely this minor tremble was nothing to worry over.
Yet shouts rose outside his cabin. Aldair left his chart and went to the door, opened it, and ran smack into the ship’s boy.
“Captain!” Ottee said. “Your presence is requested on deck, sir.”
Aldair pulled the door closed and followed the boy. Thunder cracked overhead, though the graying dusk sky was clear. A glance over the rail revealed very little surf. The water was instead marred by endless rings, similar to those produced when one jarred the side of a washtub.
Thunder rolled again, though not from the sky. From land—and this time it did not stop. Aldair spotted movement at the rock wall of the cape. Silt and rocks raining down. Boulders. The surf churned white and foamy against the cliffs. That landslide would push a wall of water toward them in a matter of minutes.
“Landslide!” Aldair yelled, jogging onto the main deck. They’d dropped sail to slow into port, and there was no time to raise them and get up enough speed to turn.
Ottee yelled, “Captain on deck!”
“I have the deck,” Aldair said to Carlus Breck, the first mate. “Hard a port.”
Breck yelled the order down the hatch to the helmsman, who was manning the whipstaff in steerage.
“Drop the port anchor,” Aldair added. “We’ve got to turn now.”
Breck echoed the order to two sailors and added, “Go, go!”
The men scurried across the deck toward the bow as Aldair watched the water. If they didn’t turn, the wave might roll them. The dropped anchor line would hopefully swing them around in time.
“It’s going down!” Breck yelled, staring at the cape.
Chunks of rock the size of houses fell and plunged into the sea, creating a swell that rippled out toward them. Aldair waited, tense, for the anchor to dig into the sea bed. He didn’t have his charts handy to know how deep—
There! The ship trembled as the anchor struck bottom. A tug and the bow swung around just in time to meet the water, which rolled monstrously large toward them. Some of the sailors cheered. One stumbled at the sudden movement.
“Hang on!” The order ripped from Aldair’s mouth. He grabbed the port rail and hunched down to protect himself as the mountain of water raised them up. He could hear the strain on the timber as the anchor line held taught.
Ottee yelped and slid toward him. Aldair reached out and grabbed the boy, helping him get a grip on the rail while watching the movement of ship and water. Mikreh’s teeth! They were going to clear it!
He hadn’t realized he’d been smiling until the sound of timber splintering off the port bow made him frown. No, no!
The ship lurched, twisted roughly, then jerked as the anchor line snapped. They hadn’t let out enough line! Without the anchor’s support, the wall of water pushed the ship backward. The incline was so steep that the men tumbled about, grabbing for anything to hold on to.
“Gods help us!” Aldair yelled moments before the ship jolted from the stern.
They’d hit something. The reef, he guessed, despair welling within him. The wave surged past, yet they remained in place, jerking back and forth, the reef chewing up the hull.
“Check the bilge!” he yelled, starting for the stairs. “And the forward and stern bulkheads!” He needed to see for himself what he already sensed. Was there time to fother the leaks? The nearest beachhead was a good hour south, likely longer with the dinghy towing them. Could they make it?
Halfway down the steep steps, his boots met water. Nortin, who worked the pumps, looked up at him. “It’s up to my knees, Captain”—which Aldair could plainly see—“but it’s past my waist at the bow.”
Wolf waded through the water from the aft, eyes bright with fear. “She’s breaking apart at the stern, Captain.”
“Abandon ship!” Aldair yelled, turning back up the stairs. “Launch the dinghy!”
The men scrambled to the main deck and set to work. The cliff continued to crumble, sending more waves that caused the ship to thrash against the reef. The fate of the Half Moon was out of Aldair’s hands now, sitting helpless on the reef, grinding apart bit by bit.
The freeboard was nearly under at the bow. They needed to get off before they were all in the water and the waves threw them between the ship and the reef. Most of his men couldn’t swim.
It spoke well for his crew that they were able to launch the dinghy in a sea that had quickly become loppy. One by one they boarded the dinghy. Aldair was last to leave his doomed vessel for the smaller one.
“Get us away from the ship,” he told the oarsmen, “then take us into port.”
The men rowed hard. Gradually, stroke by stroke, they put open water between themselves and the wreckage. A leak sprouted through a hole knocked in the dinghy’s side when the men had launched, so those who weren’t rowing set to bailing with hands and hats. The rough sound of the Half Moon grating against the reef faded with each pull of the oars that carried them toward home.
By now the sky had blackened. Night was upon them. The surging waves came in bunches, pushing the dinghy south, toward the harbor. They would indeed make it to land before the night bells tolled, but home? For Aldair?
There was no longer any evidence of the Half Moon on the empty sea. No sign of the rocky peninsula. Cape Waldemar was gone. Completely. The entire cliff, which once had housed two score of upscale homes and over fifteen hundred people, had gone into the deep. Maybe Father Tomek was right about the Five Woes.
Aldair’s family. His home. His boat. All gone.